Prisoners (prophecy)

Isaiah 49:9 That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places

The prisoners are the Israelites of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.

Ministry of Christ

The purpose of Christ's ministry is recorded in Luke chapter 4, where He Himself quotes from the later chapters of Isaiah:

Luke 4: “16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives [the Israelites, who were described as prisoners and captives by Isaiah], and recovering of sight to the blind [we should know that we are Israel!], to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

Note that He stopped before proclaiming the Day of Vengeance, which has to do only with His second advent, and not His first. There are clear connections between Christ's word in the New Testament, and the promises to Israel recorded by Isaiah in the Old Testament. Christ had come for those who sit in darkness, for the prisoners, for the captives, for those very people of the children of Israel divorced from their God centuries beforehand, in the very days of Isaiah! So it is evident that an honest study of scripture reveals precisely what Jeremiah prophesied to be: that the New Covenant was made by God with those very same people with whom He made the Old Covenant: the literal, physical, children of Israel.

Matthew 7:13 Enter in through the narrow gate, because wide is the gate and broad is the road which leads to destruction, and they are many who are entering in through it! 14 But because narrow is the gate and distressed the road which leads to life, then they are few who are finding it.

The passage in Ezra concerning the putting away of alien wives is cross-referenced to Matthew 7:13 by the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th edition. This is surprising, because the cross-reference upholds the racial nature of the covenants, which are made only with Israel! And so it is, that the so-called churches which seek to include the whole world into the redemption of Christ cause destruction, and those who seek to enter in through the straight gate are those who realize that they must separate themselves from the abominations of the aliens, and that no alien shall get by the porters at the gate. As we saw in Matthew chapter 5, Christ came only for the “prisoners” who “sit in darkness”, for the children of the Israelite captivity.